That $700 termite inspection I skipped cost me $4,200 in repairs on a duplex in Nashville

Paid a pest guy $150 to look at one unit after I saw mud tubes, but he only checked the basement, missed the entire back wall where the damage was hiding, and now I'm gutting two rooms has anyone else had a cheap inspection miss something huge?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_jessica1mo ago

$150 is basically nothing for an inspection, you get what you pay for.

karen_nelson401mo ago

150 bucks for an inspection is actually plenty in most cases. A typical home inspector walks through for an hour and a half, pokes a few things, and writes a generic report that misses half the problems anyway. Half the time they don't even get on the roof or check the crawlspace properly. What exactly are you getting for that extra 300 or 400 bucks besides a fancier binder?

smith.ray27d ago

Notice how it's the same pattern everywhere now - you pay less and people cut corners to make it work, whether it's inspections, car repairs, or even just hiring someone to paint a room. Cheap labor almost always means they rush through the job and miss the stuff that actually matters, because the person doing it doesn't care enough or have enough time to dig deeper. There's this weird spot in the middle where you spend enough to not get scammed but not so much that you're wasting money, and it's honestly a gamble every time.